Archive for the ‘Melee’ category

Tonight, or rather last night (how did it get to be 6am already?!) was rather eventful. We had an organised Abyss run with the legion, which was a little less populated than expect but still went well. It start off a little tough due to a lot of high level Elyos running around, but things got better as time went on, and we ended up clocking up about 35 kills in around an hour. Not bad going!

I also discovered an interesting fact. You can communicate with enemy players by using your Personal Store, as opposing players can still read the title of your shop despite the scrambling of normal chat. This we discovered after a higher level player tried to destroy our Kisk (which was in the fortress, and he was firing at it from above) and we attacked him but just could not kill him. To be fair, he was a level 44 healer, but all the same there were six of us, including three 30+. Eventually he danced, then sat down and opened a shop saying, “I’m sorry, you attacked me first.” So I had a pleasant conversation with him about how that Kisk he’d tried to destroy was ours, so technically he started it. All was well though, and I learnt a new lesson. It’s strange how this chatting made me think of communicating with aliens!

After it all ended, I finally reached level 30. Those of you who got the Collector’s Edition know exactly what that means. Hello, new wings and +40 flight time!

Still wearing the same armour though. Tryst and I tried going to Eltnen for the Spy quests, purely because I want the damn title, and we discovered that enemy bots are curious beings and great fun to gank the hell out of. But our fun was ended by a pair of late-night Elyos hunters. All the same, I had a good time.

I’m also going to link to this blog entry on (Insert Awesome Aion Name), where Rer posts about his new, lower leveled character that he’s been having a bit of fun with. My Chanter is 15 and I intend on getting her higher and doing Black Claw soon, so I encourage my fellow players to reroll when the going gets tough. There’s no harm in having a bit of altitis from time to time, and playing a new character really does bring back the old, chirpy feelings when you just want to get away from the grind.

First of all, sorry for the lack of activity here, I’m not dead! Was visiting family til the weekend and then my net decided to die, staying up for only three minutes at a time. Either way, it’s back up, and in that time I’ve managed to do NTC for the first time, and two more times after that, so here are some thoughts.

First of all, our first party was really great! We handled the agro really well, and the two guys from Shinigami were great. I definitely recommend partying with Shinigami members on Spatalos, from my experience so far. I had read this guide before going in and we cleared it in around the same time as it dictates. It’s quite an easy instance for those who haven’t tried it, but the drops vary. The first time we went in, the only decent drop was the blue from the Guardian, and luckily someone in the party could use it!

Second time practically nothing dropped, and the Guardian didn’t put out at all. The third time we went in the Guardian still didn’t drop, but a couple of decent greens did and I even got some Pauldrons out of it. I heard that you have to have killed all other mobs in the instance for the Guardian to drop a blue, anyone know if this is true?

Anyway, I definitely recommend this for some great leveling. Typical party set-up works, but a high-damage party set-up did us really well, and I’ve seen parties do it with only four members. It’s not too tough to stay standing, just remember to keep an eye out for patrols.

A few things to remember for NTC:

You can start at 25 and do it up until you turn 29.

I recommend taking the right path when you enter, as do many people it seems. There is a patrol that comes round from the left composed mostly of regular mobs, but with an elite in there.

If you go right on entering, there’s a safe spot by the exit portal where you can sit if anyone goes AFK or people aren’t in the instance yet.

Sadly I don’t know enough to write a coherent guide yet, but that’ll come with time I’m sure! I’m now 28, and find the XP from NTC definitely helping. Each elite is worth 15-20k XP, and the bosses are from 35k-60k, depending on level and party members.

Dancing and showing off new armour!

Either way, I’m now kitted out in some pretty nice Sura’s Plate and have been getting pretty damn lucky with drops lately. I’ve taken a bit of a break from leveling Psyche to level my alt, a Chanter. She seems to get luckier with drops than I ever have on Psyche!

Also, just a note, Clan Darkwolf are looking for new members, so if anyone is interested let me know! We’re just a casual legion out to have some fun but we do some PvE and PvP parties, and most of the members are really friendly and helpful. Sorry for the crappy content post, I hope to get some more interesting stuff up soon!

I’m away from home, visiting family for a few days, and am inevitably missing the game. Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Though that said, I wanted to do an update regarding the current state of kill claiming.

As I’m sure many of you know, Aion does not go with the first-come-first-served method that has been used frequently in other MMOs. For example, in FFXI, it is impossible for someone outside of a party who have claimed the mob to actually attack that claimed mob.

I understand the theory behind the way claiming works in Aion, but honestly I don’t think that basing it on damage is entirely fair. I can deal with not getting kills here and there because someone else happened to attack the mob as I was. Mistakes happen, and I usually try to be the one backing off and leaving the mob to the other player.

That said, in the last few days of play I have been questing in the Salintus Desert and a lot of the quests involve killing mobs and getting drops, as to be expected. It’s extremely frustrating to have the mob down to 75% or less health and have a higher level ranged class come in and do 50% in one hit, thus claiming the mob as their own, even if I have already been smacking away at it. I have even lost quest mobs on a long respawn in dangerous zones because of this, where a player will arrive halfway through the fight and claim the mob off me, then smile in chat and run off.

Honestly, changing it to whoever hits the mob first gets the claim wouldn’t prevent kill-stealing and griefing; that’s always going to exist. This is the internet after all! But would this alternate method of kill-claiming help the situation? Many players are against it, but I personally wouldn’t be disappointed to use the old tried and tested method, or even experiment with a few new ones.